The present invention relates to a steam turbine in which two or more turbine pressure sections including a high pressure turbine, an intermediate pressure turbine and a low pressure turbine are combined and accommodated into one turbine casing.
In a conventional steam turbine, in order to increase an output power thereof, a turbine casing is divided into a high pressure turbine casing, an intermediate pressure turbine casing and a low pressure turbine casing, and a turbine rotor (turbine shaft) provided with a turbine nozzle and a turbine movable blade are accommodated in each of the casings to constitute a high pressure turbine section, an intermediate pressure turbine section and a low pressure turbine section, and the turbine rotors of the respective turbine sections are directly connected in their shafts in so-called a power train connection for operation.
If the high, intermediate and low pressure turbines are arranged as the power train, although depending on its output power, the steam turbine has a long span of at least about 30 m or longer. Therefore, two or more of the high, intermediate and low pressure turbines are combined and accommodated in one casing to shorten the span, thereby realizing a so-called high-low (high-and-low) pressure integrated type turbine or a high-intermediate (high-and-intermediate) pressure integrated type turbine.
If the steam turbine is formed into any of the high-low pressure integrated type turbine and the high-intermediate pressure integrated type turbine, the turbine rotor must inevitably handle steam having different pressures and temperatures. However, in recent years, there is realized a high-low pressure integrated turbine rotor or a high-intermediate pressure integrated turbine rotor, in which a portion of the turbine rotor which is exposed to steam having high pressure and temperature is made stronger against high-temperature, and a portion of the turbine rotor which is exposed to steam having low pressure and temperature is provided with tensile strength and toughness against low temperature by changing thermal treatment conditions.
Further, in a recent thermal power plant, there has been widely used a combined cycle power plant in which a steam turbine and a heat recovery means are combined with a gas turbine instead of a conventional power plant.
As a steam turbine applied to this combined cycle power plant, one having output power of 100 MW or more is selected in view of output power of 100 MW of a current gas turbine, the steam pressure is set to 100 kg/cm.sup.2, the steam temperature is set to 500.degree. C., the blade height of the turbine movable blade of the final stage of the lower pressure turbine is made to 36 inches or higher in a region of 50Hz at the revolution number of 3,000 rpm and is made to 33.5 inches or higher in a region of 60Hz at the revolution number of 3,600 rpm. In this case, since the steam turbine is made into a so-called single-shaft type turbine in which the shaft is directly coupled to the gas turbine, the high-low pressure integrated type or the high-intermediate pressure integrated type is employed to shorten the shaft span and to reduce the site or space required for installation.
As described above, in the combined cycle power plant, which has widely and mainly utilized instead of the conventional power plant, the number of shafts directly coupling the steam turbine to the gas turbine is made five or more to increase the total output power to 1,000 MW or greater, and the steam turbine is made into the high-low pressure integrated type or the high-intermediate pressure integrated type, and the area required for installing the five shafting, i.e. shaft-alignment, is further reduced so as to effectively utilize the site or space.
In a recent thermal power plant, even if the high-low pressure integrated type or the high-intermediate pressure integrated type is employed for a steam turbine applied to the combined cycle power plant so as to further reduce the area required for installation, there provide several problems such as followings in its structure.